Roy Thomas’ Forest-Primeval Comics Fanzine
No. 190 Nov. 2024
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IT’S A
JUNGLE COMIC OUT THERE! MITCH MAGLIO TOASTS TARZANIC TRIUMPHS
FROM KAÄNGA
TO KA-ZAR— FROM SHE TO SHEENA!
Satiate Your Sinister Side!
“Greetings, creep culturists! For my debut
All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.
issue, I, the CRYPTOLOGIST (with the help of FROM THE TOMB editor PETER NORMANTON), have exhumed the worst Horror Comics excesses of the 1950s, Killer “B” movies to die for, and the creepiest, kookiest toys that crossed your boney little fingers as a child! But wait... do you dare enter the House of Usher, or choose sides in the skirmish between the Addams Family and The Munsters?! Can you stand to gaze at Warren magazine frontispieces by this issue’s cover artist BERNIE WRIGHTSON, or spend some Hammer Time with that studio’s most frightening films? And if Atlas pre-Code covers or terrifying science-fiction are more than you can take, stay away! All this, and more, is lurching toward you in TwoMorrows Publishing’s latest, and most decrepit, magazine—just for retro horror fans, and featuring my henchmen WILL MURRAY, MARK VOGER, BARRY FORSHAW, TIM LEESE, PETE VON SHOLLY, and STEVE and MICHAEL KRONENBERG!” (84-page FULL-COLOR magazine) $10.95 (Digital Edition) $4.99
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CRYPTOLOGY #2
CRYPTOLOGY #3
CRYPTOLOGY #4
The Cryptologist and his ghastly little band have cooked up more grisly morsels, including: ROGER HILL’s conversation with our diabolical cover artist DON HECK, severed hand films, pre-Code comic book terrors, the otherworldly horrors of Hammer’s Quatermass, another Killer “B” movie classic, plus spooky old radio shows, and the horror-inspired covers of the Shadow’s own comic book. Start the ghoul-year with retro-horror done right by FORSHAW, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, RICHARD HAND, VON SHOLLY, and editor PETER NORMANTON.
This third wretched issue inflicts the dread of MARS ATTACKS upon you—the banned cards, the model kits, the despicable comics, and a few words from the film’s deranged storyboard artist PETE VON SHOLLY! The chilling poster art of REYNOLD BROWN gets brought up from the Cryptologist’s vault, along with a host of terrifying puppets from film, and more comic books they’d prefer you forget! Plus, more Hammer Time, JUSTIN MARRIOT on obscure ’70s fear-filled paperbacks, another Killer “B” film, and more to satiate your sinister side!
Our fourth putrid tome treats you to ALEX ROSS’ gory lowdown on his Universal Monsters paintings! Hammer Time brings you face-to-face with the “Brides of Dracula”, and the Cryptologist resurrects 3-D horror movies and comics of the 1950s! Learn the origins of slasher films, and chill to the pre-Code artwork of Atlas’ BILL EVERETT and ACG’s 3-D maestro HARRY LAZARUS. Plus, another Killer “B” movie and more awaits retro horror fans, by NORMANTON, the KRONENBERGS, LEESE, VOGER, and VON SHOLLY!
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Vol. 3, No. 190/Nov. 2024 Editor
Roy Thomas
Associate Editor Jim Amash
Design & Layout
Christopher Day
Consulting Editor John Morrow
FCA Editor
P.C. Hamerlinck J.T. Go (Associate Editor) Mark Lewis (Cover Coordinator)
Comic Crypt Editor
Michael T. Gilbert
Editorial Honor Roll
Jerry G. Bails (founder) Ronn Foss, Biljo White Mike Friedrich, Bill Schelly
Proofreader
William J. Dowlding
Cover Artist
Lou Fine (with a 2024 assist from Shane Foley)
Cover Color & Restoration Chris Fama
With Special Thanks to:
Sean Howe Heidi Amash Christopher Boyko Eric Jansen Nancy Shores Dewey Cassell Karlebach John Cimino Jonathan Levey Shaun Clancy Jean-Marc Lofficier John Coates Jim Ludwig Comic Book Plus Mitch Maglio (website) Dan Makara Comic Vine The Paul Norris (website) family Chet Cox Will Murray Mark Evanier Pinterest (website) Wendy Everett Justin Fairfax pulpartists.com Chris Fama (website) Shane Foley John Romita, Jr. Conrad G. Froelich Virginia Romita Grant Geissman Randy Sargent Janet Gilbert David Saunders Grand Comics Bryan D. Stroud Database (website) Dann Thomas Richard Halegua Kevin Wright Ron Harris
This issue is dedicated to the memory of
Ramona Fradon, Roger Hill, & John G. Pierce
Contents Writer/Editorial: Rumble In A Four-Color Jungle . . . . . . . . . . 2 “It’s A Jungle Comic Out There!” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Tarzanic tales in the Golden Age of Comics & beyond, spotlighted by Mitch Maglio.
From Kansas To Congorilla . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Conrad G. Froelich examines explorers/filmmakers Martin & Osa Johnson in comics.
Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt! We All Have To Start Somewhere! (Part 4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 The early work of comics great Sam Glanzman, celebrated by Michael T. Gilbert.
Tributes to Ramona Fradon & Roger Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America] #249 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 John G. Pierce salutes artist Bob Laughlin—then P.C. Hamerlinck salutes JGP!
On Our Cover: There seemed no cover nearly so fitting to grace this issue of Alter Ego as the one for Fiction House’s Jungle Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), delineated by the great Lou Fine. It seems to have been the only artwork for that title Fine ever did, but it set a high mark for everything that followed, and heralded a comicbook that incorporated just about every jungle sub-genre, as you’ll see in Mitch Maglio’s masterful article that begins on p. 3. The only art on our version of the cover not by Lou Fine is the primeval-scene masthead, with its illustration of lions stalking a gazelle, which remained a fixture on Jungle covers for years. Since so much of it was covered up by the Jungle Comics logo, we asked our marvelous “maskot” artist Shane Foley to draw a fuller version of it, and as usual, he came through like a champ (not a chimp)! Cover art restoration by Chris Fama. [Art © the respective copyright holders.] Above: Fiction House has pride of place on our contents page, too, since no jungle series starring the female of the species came anywhere close to matching the appeal of “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” cover star for years of Jumbo Comics as well as her own title. Above is the lead splash panel from Jumbo #51 (May 1943), drawn by Robert Webb and Ann Brewster. Writer unknown. Pay no heed to the “W. Morgan Thomas” byline atop the page; virtually all Fiction House series sported such house pseudonyms. [Sheena is a trademark of Galaxy Publishing, Inc. & Val D’Oro Entertainment, or successors in interest.] Alter EgoTM issue 190, November 2024 (ISSN 1932-6890) is published bi-monthly by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614, USA. Phone: (919) 449-0344. Periodicals postage paid at Raleigh, NC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Alter Ego, c/o TwoMorrows, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Roy Thomas, Editor. John Morrow, Publisher. Alter Ego Editorial Offices: 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews, SC 29135, USA. Fax: (803) 826-6501; e-mail: roydann@ntinet.com. Send subscription funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial offices. Six-issue subscriptions: $73 US, $111 Elsewhere, $29 Digital Only. All characters are © their respective companies. All material ©their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © Roy Thomas. Alter Ego is a TM of Roy & Dann Thomas. FCA is a TM of P.C. Hamerlinck. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.
2
Article Title writer/editorial
Rumble In A Four-Color Jungle
I
t always happens! Every time I think an issue of Alter Ego is going to be easy to put together, it turns out to have a mind of its own.
This time, Fiction House and jungle-comics specialist Mitch Maglio put together a fine overview of jungle-related comicbooks from the Golden and Silver Ages—only to have me decide belatedly that I wanted it to at least mention in passing even more of the multitudinous rainforest regnants. Which meant that I spent hours looking up info on Morak the Mighty, Marga the Panther Woman, et al. Mitch’s article, plus the piece I commissioned from Conrad G. Froelich on the comics adventures of jungle filmmakers Martin & Osa Johnson, pretty much filled up the issue! But, in my over-enthusiasm, I’d invited a few others to submit jungle material as well, so I wound up with two sidebars by Will Murray… a welcome plethora of comic art from former Tarzan artist Thomas Yeates… a handful of jungle-related cartoons from John Lustig’s online humor-feature Last Kiss… plus notes from Jean-Marc Lofficier on European titans of the tropics. So much material, in fact, that when I remembered I hadn’t yet decided what would fill out A/E #191 behind its FCA lead feature, I decreed our very next issue will showcase “It’s a Jungle Comic Out There! Part II.” I only hope we can fit everything left over—plus our sadly postponed “re:” section—into that one! One thing I didn’t ask Mitch or the others to deal with is a sore point that inevitably comes up when dealing with the literary “sons and daughters of Tarzan”—the touch (and often more than a touch) of “white supremacy” that often seems a sub-text in a genre that, after all, started off with the notion of the scion of an English
nobleman raised by apes and becoming a “jungle lord” over both beasts and indigenous black inhabitants of Africa. By now, though, that defect in the genre is so well-known and oft-discussed that I decided we didn’t need to waste a lot of words re-proving the long-proven. Let’s just accept that shortcoming of the subject matter as a given—and if someone wants to scribe an article about that aspect of jungle comics, I’ll certainly consider publishing it if it amounts to more than gratuitous race-shaming.
Matter of fact, I was surprised, when re-reading many jungle mags, to find that one thing wasn’t as predominant as I thought it might be: namely, the visual stereotyping of the “natives.” Sure, they’re often (usually) depicted as relatively primitive and unsophisticated by Western standards of the period; but most of the stories are set during a time when many sub-equatorial peoples still lived under tribal conditions. And we have to remember that, while the tales covered in this issue were mostly published in the ’40s and ’50s, they actually reflect the half-mythic past of the Tarzan concept, so that the surreal milieu in which they occur is really more reflective of the late 19th and very early 20th centuries than of the date listed in the publishers’ indicia. Of course, that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel the need to point out a few artistic stereotypes along the way… but to do too much more would’ve seemed to me like beating a dead hyena. Jungle comics, except of the ecological/environmental type, are pretty much in our rearview mirror now, and that’s probably by and large not a bad thing. But the original jungle comics are a part of comics history, and thus grist for Alter Ego’s ever-grinding mill.
Bestest,
COMING IN DECEMBER #191
“ROCK OF ETERNITY”— & COMIC JUNGLE, Part II!
Comics. Shazam hero TM & © DC
• FCA #250 Super-Special!: Two kinds of larger-than-life royalty! P.C. HAMERLINCK & CARL LANI’KEHA SHINYAMA pay homage to MAC RABOY’s breathtaking 1940s Captain Marvel Jr.—and its influence on the life, career, and look of rock’n’roll king ELVIS PRESLEY from the Fabulous ’50s through the Vegas ’70s! Plus surprising excerpts from the bio that first mapped it all—ELAINE DUNDY’s Elvis and Gladys, annotated by ROY THOMAS! • “Comic Jungle – Part II!” More art & anecdotes re the classic Tarzanic comicbooks, courtesy of THOMAS YEATES, WILL MURRAY, & JEAN-MARC LOFFICIER—& “Last Kiss in the Jungle” hi-jinx (& lo-jinx) from JOHN LUSTIG! • Plus—MICHAEL T. GILBERT presents ALAN JADRO’s You-Are-There report on JOHN BENSON’s 1966 New York comic-con, featuring KIRBY, STERANKO, BINDER, THOMAS, et al.—all this & MORE!!
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3
“It’s A JUNGLE COMIC Out There!” Tarzanic Tales In The Golden Age (& Beyond) by Mitch Maglio
T
with Caption Annotation by Roy Thomas here is a little-known, seldom-told tale of the legendary jungle king, Tarzan of the Apes.
One day, the Lord of the Jungle swung into his treetop home, where he found his companion Jane wondering for the 100th time what two adults were doing living in a tree.
“…Just Like A Queen And Her King!” It’s their party and they’ll throw spears if they want to! From first to last, the covers of Dell/Western’s Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan (as per #7, Jan.-Feb. 1949) tended to be less inclined toward violent action than those featuring Sheena on Fiction House’s Jumbo Comics (as evinced by that of #159, May ’52). Respective covers by Jesse Marsh and an unidentified artist—quite possibly Maurice Whitman. Covers courtesy of the Grand Comics Database & Mitch Maglio, respectively. Except where otherwise ID’d, all images accompanying this article were supplied by author Maglio. [Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.; Sheena is a registered trademark of Galaxy Publishing Inc. & Val D’Oro Entertainment, or successors in interest.]
A clearly nervous Tarzan in his deep baritone voice intoned… “Jane, make Tarzan martini.” (The Jungle Lord was not much of a bartender and deferred to the more talented lady of the house.) After taking a long gulp from his drink, Tarzan became very quiet, a faraway look came into his eyes, followed by a Sherlockian observation… “Jane, it’s a jungle out there!” Where comicbooks in the 1940s and 1950s were concerned, Tarzan’s observation was the literal truth. It was a jungle out there! [A/E EDITOR’S NOTE: I apologize most abjectly to author Mitch Maglio for stealing his thunder a bit by having adapted the above punchline into the title of his article—but I figured I might as well, since I had already independently used the phrase “It’s a JUNGLE COMIC out there!” in the long-advertised cover copy for this issue. There are, after all, only so many good jungle jokes to go around.] When Action Comics #1, featuring a colorful new character called Superman, hit the stands in April of 1938 (cover-dated that June), a seismic shift ran through the still evolving comicbook industry. Within a very few years of the debut of the Man of Tomorrow, there were literally hundreds of super-powered characters appearing in an equal number of publications. Some, like Batman, became icons in their own right. Others, such as the “immortal” Minimidget, an Atom-like crime-fighting hero (first appearance: Amazing-Man Comics #5, Sept. 1938), were gone almost before anyone noticed they were ever there. By 1939, Superman had his own eponymous comicbook title, a radio series, and an official “Superman Day” at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. The Age of the Super-hero had begun and would continue unabated until the end of World War II. Given the dominance of the costumed hero, it is easy for comics fans to believe that the Golden Age was only about the super-hero. They would be mistaken.
While super-heroes dominated the comicbook landscape in the early years, there were as many genres in comics as there were in pulp magazines, radio, and film. Westerns, war stories, horror, science-fiction, comedy, and romance all had their place in the new medium. Welcome to the jungle! Today the “jungle adventure” genre is largely a thing of the past, relegated to the occasional Tarzan, King Kong, or Jungle Book reboot… and of course Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, persists on and off in comicbooks right up to the present. Aside from those few exceptions, the jungle-adventure genre rests firmly in the realm of nostalgia. However, during the first six decades of the 20th century, the jungle-adventure genre was as popular as science-fiction is today. That particular genre is largely the creation of three writers: H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. The work of Rider Haggard (1856-1925), though less well-remembered today than that of the other two authors listed above, is no less important to the jungle genre… and precedes that of even Kipling by nearly a decade, and ERB by rather more. In 1886 he penned the novel She – A History of Adventure, which was published in episodic form in The Graphic magazine in Great Britain
4
Tarzanic Tales In The Golden Age (& Beyond)
Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), of course was the creator of Tarzan of the Apes, who first appeared in a pulp magazine titled The All-Story in October of 1912. His subsequent series of adventures were later consolidated into book form, and today it is the common belief that Tarzan began life as a novel when, in fact, his birthplace was in the world of the pulps. The exploration of “the Dark Continent” and the mystery of exotic, far-off lands was fertile ground for the likes of Jack London, W.H. Hudson, Rider Haggard, Kipling, and Burroughs. These writers, among many others, transported readers to places they could never go, to encounter adventures they could never have dreamed of. “The jungle” was a favorite locale.
H. Rider Haggard
The term “jungle” is somewhat nebulous, in that it doesn’t have to be a traditional African locale. The “jungle” could be in Africa or in India, or in China. It could be a land that time forgot or a lost city in the desert or a mystical island. In comics the “jungle” could be under the seas or even on the moons of Jupiter! In short, the “jungle” is any exotic location that serves the needs of the story.
was Sir Henry by the time of this 1905 photo. Two of the reasons for his knighting were the novels King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and She – A History of Adventure (1886), both represented here by vintage art showing Allain Quatermain and Ayesha. [© the respective copyright holders.]
through 1887. The story revolves around Queen Ayesha of a lost realm in the African interior, most often referred to as “She Who Must Be Obeyed.” In addition to She, Rider Haggard had earlier created Allan Quartermain in the 1885 novel King Solomon’s Mines, which also takes place in the jungles of Africa. If Quartermain wasn’t Indiana Jones’ father, he was surely somewhere on the family tree. It was Quartermain who provided the template for characters like Alex Raymond’s Jungle Jim, “King of the Kongo,” and DC Comics’ “Congo Bill.” Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was influential in several areas of writing, but is especially remembered for his works set in India, with his two Jungle Books among his greatest claims to immortality. His creation Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves who eventually slays the vicious tiger Shere Khan, may or may not have influenced the even more popular Tarzan (Burroughs certainly never admitted to it), but definitely got there ahead of any other humans-reared-by-jungleanimals.
Edgar Rice Burroughs really shifted the jungle-adventure genre into high gear with his authorship of the novel Tarzan of the Apes, which first appeared in the Oct. 1912 issue of The All-Story magazine, with oft-seen cover art by Clinton Pettee (below right). (We’re uncertain of the name of the artist of the illustration on that issue’s title page but included it above because it’s rarely seen—yet is obviously the second image the public ever saw of the ape-man.) The tale was published as a book in mid-1914 and became a runaway seller. [Tarzan TM & © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.]
Rudyard Kipling did for late-19th-century India what Rider Haggard did for Africa. His The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) introduced the world to Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves, but each also contains a number of other stories of jungle lore and wild beasts, such as “Toomai of the Elephants” and the mongoose “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.” The illustration by W.H. Drake is from the first edition of Jungle Book. [© the respective copyright holders.]
5
“It’s A Jungle Comic Out There!”
W.H. Hudson Alas, we couldn’t locate any illustrations (assuming there were any) from the 1904 edition of Green Mansions, but here’s the cover of the 1944 Modern Library edition. In the 1970s, DC briefly published a comicbook of Rima the Jungle Girl, which was set in the Amazon rainforest and starred the heroine of Hudson’s book. The novel itself related the romance of this relatively passive “jungle queen” (with a white man from civilization, naturally), which ended tragically. A 1959 film adaptation of Green Mansions starred Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins. [© the respective copyright holders.]
The rise of the jungle genre—which started with Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and She in the 1880s; Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895), featuring the wolf-boy Mowgli but also various other tales set in the jungle of India; W. H. Hudson’s Rima the Jungle Girl in Green Mansions (1904); and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes (1912) and The Land That Time Forgot (1918)—blazed a trail that led directly to Sheena by way of your local movie theatre.
Trader Horn was a 1931 film directed by W.S. Van Dyke, based on the biography of an ivory trader. Its “jungle girl,” Nina Trent, was the daughter (fictionally inserted into the movie) of a dead missionary; she is worshipped by a black tribe and “rescued” by white hunters. A comparison of the re-release poster (above) and publicity still (below) reveals that she was portrayed in ads as far more of a proto-Sheena th5an she actually was in the film. Still, the details of Nina’s origin may have influenced those of Sheena a few years later. Actress Edwina Booth caught a career-ending disease while filming in Africa and later sued MGM over it. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
Both Tarzan and Ayesha have been portrayed on film since the silent era. Beginning in 1918 with the release of Tarzan of the Apes starring Elmo Lincoln as the Jungle Lord and Enid Markey as Jane Porter, the jungle genre made an indelible mark on cinema. Betty Blythe played She in 1925. With the coming of the sound era, the 1931 Trader Horn (very loosely based on a biographical novel), became the first non-documentary film ever made in Africa and dealt with a vaguely Ayesha-like “jungle queen” portrayed by Edwina Booth; it was set in the 1870s. With the coming of the sound era, Tarzan began a highly successfully series in 1932 with Johnny Weissmuller as ERB’s hero and Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane in Tarzan the Ape Man. In 1935 Merian C. Cooper (major creator of King Kong) directed an epic re-adaptation of She that starred Helen Gahagan, Randolph Scott, and Nigel Bruce. The jungle had its share of lords, but many lost worlds were dominated by jungle queens. This would be particularly true when the genre made its presence felt in comicbooks. Jungle “girls” particularly dominated comics, second in popularity only to the “super-hero,” for over a decade.
Silents On The Savannah (Left:) Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan and Enid Markey as Jane in the 1918 silent adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes. (Right:) A vintage lobby card for the 1925 film of She. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
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Tarzanic Tales In The Golden Age (& Beyond)
Pantha had a nice cushy job as the “ace animal trainer of the Great National Circus,” but after she is sent to the African jungle to search for a monster gorilla, she decides to settle down, don a fur bikini, and do “Sheena-stuff” for the next few years. Pantha is the artistic creation of Art Saaf, another fine Good Girl artist with a Fiction House pedigree. Princess Pantha made 26 appearances during her initial run, taking on the usual assortment of bad guys while searching for the elusive “white gorilla.” Her run as the featured Good Girl of Thrilling Comics rendered by Schomburg is every bit as striking as that of Exciting’s Judy of the Jungle.
The Perils of Nyoka Although not quite as glamorous as some of her sisters, Fawcett’s feature “Nyoka, the Jungle Girl” was every bit as resourceful and intrepid as any bikini-clad jungle queen. She was also more successful than any other jungle girl (with the exception of Sheena, of course), making over 100 appearances in comicbook adventures from 1942 through 1957.
A Date With “Judy Of The Jungle” “Judy of the Jungle” didn’t possess a very prepossessing name… but the covers by Alex Schomburg and the interior art by Ralph Mayo knocked the super-hero Black Terror off the covers of Pines/Standard’s Exciting Comics during the latter years of the Golden Age. Seen here is the splash page of #67 (May ’49). Art Saaf drew some great-looking “Judy” exploits, too. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
tramp through the jungle looking for eccentric old men to murder. Being a sage old guy, Judy’s dying father tells her to “live for revenge” and then promptly exits the story. After hunting down Dad’s killers, Judy embarks on a series of standard jungle-queen adventures for another 20 appearances alongside her main squeeze, Special Agent “Pistol Roberts.” Yup! Pistol Roberts… you could look it up! “Judy” is special and enduring mostly because of the amazing cover art of Alex Schomburg. His painted covers, exquisitely rendered, made Judy one of the Golden Age’s most iconic Good Girl images. Alex Schomburg was a friend to all jungle girls—but in particular those who appeared on the covers of comicbooks distributed by Nedor/ Standard/Pines. The other Nedor jungle queen to get the Schomburg treatment was Princess Pantha.
Pantha Power It was AlexSchomburg covers and lush interior art that made “Princess Pantha” a hit for several years as the lead feature of Pines’ Thrilling Comics, as witness this cover and Art Saaf’s splash page for issue #71 (Feb. 1949). Scripter unknown, natch. Courtesy of Mitch Maglio and Comic Book Plus website. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
21
“It’s A Jungle Comic Out There!”
The Perils Of Nyoka (Clockwise from left:) Nyoka the Jungle Girl started out with a tenuous (really, pretty much nonexistent) connection to Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs, despite the poster for the 1941 Republic Pictures Jungle Girl movie serial. Later came the 1945 one-shot with that same title, with art by Harry Anderson. The great white huntress was soon the star of her own regularly published Fawcett comicbook, as per the cover of Nyoka the Jungle Girl #2 (the first issue with that title, dated Winter 1945), perhaps drawn by Bert Whitman. The book had legs—and not just Nyoka’s—as witness the photo-cover (posed by a professional model) for issue #71 (Sept. 1952). [Nyoka TM & © Bill Black.]
Nyoka somehow both was and was not a creation of Tarzan’s authorial father, Edgar Rice Burroughs. ERB wrote a story called “Jungle Girl” that appeared in the May 1931 issue of the pulp magazine Blue Book, and was later re-published as “The Land of Hidden Men.” The closest thing to a “jungle princess” in that one, however, was an Asian girl who was no adventure heroine. Somehow, in 1941, a 15-chapter Republic movie serial titled Jungle Girl, officially credited as a Burroughs creation (probably mostly for publicity purposes), starred Frances Gifford as a “great white huntress” named Nyoka. And from that point, at least, “Nyoka the Jungle Girl” was off and running. More like Jungle Jim than Sheena, she did not sport a fur bathing suit or talk like Tarzan. Rather, she was most often clad in safari gear and functioned in ways more closely akin to the future Indiana Jones than to a standard jungle queen. In some manner, Nyoka got licensed or sold outright to Fawcett Publications, home of the original Captain Marvel, appearing at first as a feature in Master Comics (behind “Captain Marvel
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Tarzanic Tales In The Golden Age (& Beyond)
Al Hartley from Marvel Tales Annual #1 (1964)
Jungle Lights—Jungle Camera—Jungle Action! Fred Kida
(Above:) Two ongoing series of Jungle Action #1 (Oct. 1954)—and, actually, of the entire 6-issue series—were “Lo-Zar, Lord of the Jungle”with art by Joe Maneely and “Leopard Girl,” delineated by Al Hartley. Incidentally, when the “Lo-Zar” stories were reprinted in the early 1970s, Roy Thomas rechristened him “Tharn,” after a jungle hero from the old pulps. All writers unidentified. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
A Prince Of Ebony More Congo Capers Bob Powell’s cover for Thun’da, King of the Congo #2 (1952). Courtesy of the GCD. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
“Waku” was a most unusual feature, since its hero and all its recurring characters were black, a true rarity for those days. He appeared on the covers of all seven issues. This Fred Kida splash is from Jungle Action #5 (June 1955). Thanks to the GCD. [TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.]
45
“It’s A Jungle Comic Out There!”
“Bring ’Em Back Alive!”
the far more simian Congorilla in 1959. Congo Bill(rilla) had a long run as a back-up in Action until 1961. [EDITOR’S NOTE: See our follow-up feature on Martin and Osa Johnson in the comics of the 1940s for some surprising angles on “Congorilla.” Because of it, we’ve omitted the paragraphs Mitch Maglio had penned on the Johnsons, once-famous jungle explorers and filmmakers—and comics stars.] Over the years, DC has kept their toes in the jungle with features like Bomba the Jungle Boy (based on a series of “young Tarzan”-type juvenile novels introduced in the 1920s), “B’wana Beast,” and even to some extent the post-apocalyptic Kamandi (The Last Boy on Earth). Over at Marvel, perhaps at the suggestion of publisher Martin Goodman, writer/editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby came up with a new and improved rendition of the Golden Age Ka-Zar that utilized nothing but the name and hair color of the original. In The X-Men #10 (March 1965), the young mutants encountered a new and even fiercer Ka-Zar in a prehistoric jungle beneath the Antarctic ice. The new jungle hero chummed around not with Zar the lion but with Zabu the sabretooth! This one went on to become a long-running comics star on his own. The next year, T’Challa, the Black Panther, made his debut in Marvel’s Fantastic Four #52 (July 1966), from the same Lee & Kirby team. His further adventures were chronicled in Jungle Action and various Black Panther series, right into the 21st century. Today the Black Panther and Wakanda are central players in both the print and cinematic Marvel Universes.
With its May 1950 issue (#70), the romance comic My True Love was converted for three issues into Frank Buck, creating fictional adventures for the true-life famous hunter of big game to supply to U.S. zoos, with his resounding motto (which we’ve utilized in the heading of this caption—and which was also the title of his first ghost-written autobiographical book). The interior art in #70 was the work of a young Wally Wood. Courtesy of CBP. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
Marvel didn’t stop with those two, however. In the early ’70s, a new jungle heroine named Shanna the She-Devil (who might just be a first cousin of Sheena) found a Bronze Age home at the House of Ideas—and eventually she and the new Ka-Zar even found each other! The jungle continued to thrive during the Silver Age at Dell in titles like Jungle War Stories, Toka [Jungle King], and Jungle Jim (who also had a Silver Age run at Charlton Comics). In 1964, Gold Key took up the Tarzan mantle in a new way with issue #1 of Korak Son of Tarzan. The first issue featured art by Morris Gollub and scripts by Russ Manning. The series ended in November 1971 after 45 issues. Also in 1964, Charlton took a brief (and unauthorized) stab at chronicling Tarzan’s exploits with a four-issue run titled Jungle Tales of Tarzan and based on ERB’s stories that had been collected in a book of that name decades earlier. Later, first DC, then Marvel, then still later Dark Horse became the official publisher of ERB’s seminal hero. Sheena, the girl who started it all (at least in terms of comicbooks), continues to rule over her little piece of the jungle to this day. In the 1980s original 3-D “Sheena” adventures were [Continued on p. 49]
Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation Publication Title: Alter Ego Publication Number: 1932-6890 Filing Date: July 4, 2024 Issue Frequency: Bi-monthly Number of Issues Published Annually: 6 Annual Subscription Price: $73 Address of Known Office of Publication and General Business Office of Publisher: TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Contact Person: John Morrow Telephone: 919-449-0344 Editor: Roy Thomas, 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews SC 29135 Publisher and Managing Editor: John Morrow, TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Dr., Raleigh, NC 27614 Owner: Roy Thomas, 32 Bluebird Trail, St. Matthews SC 29135 Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders: None Issue Date for Circulation Data: July 2024 Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 2433 No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 2700 Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside the Mail) (1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 406 (2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies): 0 (3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS®: 1843 (4) Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS (e.g., First-Class Mail®): 31 Total Paid Distribution: 2280 Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (By Mail and Outside the Mail) (1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies included on PS Form 3541: 221 (2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541: 0 (3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS (e.g., First-Class Mail): 0 (4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means): 0 Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution: 221 Total Distribution: 2501 Copies not Distributed: 199 Total: 2700 Percent Paid: 91% I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalties). John Morrow, publisher
Art by Gil Kane & John Romita Ka-Zar TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.
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Mr. Monster’s Comic Crypt!
We All Have To Start Somewhere! (Part 4)
S
by Michael T. Gilbert
am was the first pro I ever met up close and personal. The year was 1969 and I was an 18-year-old high school senior, working part-time before school at the Commack Post Office on Long Island, NY. After unloading mail sacks, I spotted a large flat package of comic pages Sam was mailing to Charlton. I was shocked and delighted to discover that a real live comicbook artist lived right in my own town. Gathering my courage, I found Sam’s name in the phone book and called him. Then I nervously asked if my then-girlfriend and I could visit. Slightly suspicious, he asked me what comics of his I’d read. Fortunately, I actually was a fan and listed his recent Hercules series for Charlton (wild stuff!), as well as Dell’s Kona and various war comics. Thus convinced, he invited gal-pal Karen and me over and
Another FLY-By-Night Hero? Sixteen-year-old Sam Glanzman created his first super-hero, Fly-Man, for Harvey’s Spitfire Comics #1. Sam’s Fly-Man was no relation to Archie’s 1960sera hero bearing the same name. His Fly-Man, alas, lasted only two stories. This original page is from August 1941. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
we spent a couple of hours schmoozing. Mr. Glanzman was very friendly. Humble to a fault. And Jewish. Our mouths dropped when he related a war story about his Southern shipmates on the USS Stevens. They had never seen a Jew before—and were genuinely surprised that Sam didn’t have horns! Sam also mentioned that he and his brother Lou (whom he greatly admired!) had drawn comics way back in the Golden Age. I tried to press him on details, but memories of what titles exactly had faded with time. Back then there was no Grand Comics Database, Who’s Who of American Comics, or even Google to find out. There were few historical books or articles on Golden Age comics beyond the original Alter Ego and a few other ‘60s-era fanzines.
A Second Glanz At Comics The Centaur comics group’s Amazing-Man #12 (May 1940) featured “The Shark,” drawn by Sam’s older brother Louis “Lew” Glanzman. Lou went on to a lucrative career in commercial and fine art. Sam was a huge fan! [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
Not so today! We now know that Samuel Joseph Glanzman was born on December 5, 1924, and began his comics career in late 1939 in the studios of early comicbook packager Funnies, Inc. However, technically, Sam’s first comicbook art appeared in the fan page of Tip Top Comics #44, in December 1939, drawn when he was at the tail end of fourteen.
We All Have To Start Somewhere! (Part 4)
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Tip Top Cartooning! Sam’s very first comicbook appearance was a fan offering on “The Tip Top Fan Club” page in United’s Tip Top Comics #44 (Dec. 1939). Sam was fourteen when he drew it. Three other young, aspiring cartoonists mentioned on the page included Jack Davis, Warren Tufts, and Mort Walker. Wow! [© the respective copyright holders.]
Sam kept busy until 1943 doing art for Chesler, Harvey, and others. Some of his early credits can be confusing. Comic historians sometimes mistake Sam’s early art with that of the similarly-named Sam Gilman. Gilman was also working for Chesler at the time, and
sometimes signed his art with the same ”S.G.” initials. Sam Gilman later became a highly successful character actor for TV and movies. But we know where he got his start! Further confusing the issue is the “Sam Decker” pseudonym that Sam and Lou Glanzman
A Woeful Beginning!
That’s The Bunk!
“Why, Woeful Wilbert…!” may be Sam’s first war story, a genre at which he excelled. It’s from Harvey’s All-New Short Story Comics #3 (May 1943). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
An original page from Harvey’s Green Hornet #12 (April 1943). Lots of goofy details here, but I’m not convinced big-foot humor was Sam’s strongest suit. [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
19942024 UPDATE #2
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ZOWIE!
THE TV SUPERHERO CRAZE IN ’60s POP CULTURE by MARK VOGER
HOLY PHENOMENON! In the way-out year of 1966, the action comedy “Batman” starring ADAM WEST premiered and triggered a tsunami of super swag, including toys, games, Halloween costumes, puppets, action figures, and lunch boxes. Meanwhile, still more costumed avengers sprang forth on TV (“The Green Hornet,” “Ultraman”), in MOVIES (“The Wild World of Batwoman,” “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo”), and in ANIMATION (“Space Ghost,” “The Marvel Super Heroes”). ZOWIE! traces the history of the superhero genre from early films, through the 1960s TV superhero craze, and its pop culture influence ever since. This 192-page hardcover, in pop art colors that conjure the period, spotlights the coolest collectibles and kookiest knockoffs every ’60s kid begged their parents for, and features interviews with the TV stars (WEST, BURT WARD, YVONNE CRAIG, FRANK GORSHIN, BURGESS MEREDITH, CESAR ROMERO, JULIE NEWMAR, VAN WILLIAMS), the artists behind the comics (JERRY ROBINSON, DICK SPRANG, CARMINE INFANTINO, JOE GIELLA), and others. Written and designed by MARK VOGER (MONSTER MASH, HOLLY JOLLY), ZOWIE! is one super read! (192-page FULL-COLOR HARDCOVER) $43.95 • (Digital Edition) $15.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-125-7 NOW SHIPPING!
MARVEL COMICS In The EARLY 1960s
All characters and properties TM & © their respective owners.
AN ISSUE-BY-ISSUE FIELD GUIDE TO A POP CULTURE PHENOMENON by PIERRE COMTOIS
This new volume in the ongoing “MARVEL COMICS IN THE...” series takes you all the way back to that company’s legendary beginnings, when gunfighters traveled the West and monsters roamed the Earth! The company’s output in other genres influenced the development of their super-hero characters from Thor to Spider-Man, and featured here are the best of those stories not covered previously, completing issue-by-issue reviews of EVERY MARVEL COMIC OF NOTE FROM 1961-1965! Presented are scores of handy, easy to reference entries on AMAZING FANTASY, TALES OF SUSPENSE (and ASTONISH), STRANGE TALES, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, RAWHIDE KID, plus issues of FANTASTIC FOUR, AVENGERS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and others that weren’t in the previous 1960s edition. It’s author PIERRE COMTOIS’ last word on Marvel’s early years, when JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, and DON HECK, together with writer/editor STAN LEE (and brother LARRY LIEBER), built an unprecedented new universe of excitement! (224-page TRADE PAPERBACK) $29.95 • (Digital Edition) $12.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-126-4 NOW SHIPPING!
COMIC BOOK IMPLOSION (EXPANDED EDITION) by KEITH DALLAS & JOHN WELLS
NOW IN FULL-COLOR WITH BONUS PAGES! In 1978, DC Comics launched a line-wide expansion known as “The DC Explosion,” but pulled the plug weeks later, cancelling titles and leaving dozens of completed comic book stories unpublished. Now, that notorious “DC Implosion” is examined with an exhaustive oral history from JENETTE KAHN, PAUL LEVITZ, LEN WEIN, MIKE GOLD, AL MILGROM, and other DC creators of the time, plus commentary by other top pros, examining how it changed the landscape of comics forever! This new EXPANDED EDITION of the Eisner Award-nominated book explodes in FULL-COLOR FOR THE FIRST TIME, with extra coverage of LOST 1970s DC PROJECTS like NINJA THE INVISIBLE and an adaptation of “THE WIZ,” JIM STARLIN’s unaltered cover art for BATMAN FAMILY #21, content meant for cancelled Marvel titles such as GODZILLA and MS. MARVEL, and more! NOW SHIPPING! (144-page FULL-COLOR SOFTCOVER) $26.95 • (Digital Edition) $10.99 • ISBN: 978-1-60549-124-0
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HALE & Hearty
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An Interview With Fawcett Artist BOB LAUGHLIN by John G. Pierce Edited by P.C. Hamerlinck
FCA
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Robert “Bob” Laughlin (1925-2006) never received formal art training, but nonetheless went on to accomplish his childhood goal of becoming a professional cartoonist. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Laughlin was hired by Fawcett Publications’ comics department in 1946 to lay out contents pages, design house ads, and handle corrections on comicbook stories. Two years later he went freelance and became one of the regular artists on Fawcett’s Monte Hale Western, drawing two adventures per month of the cowboy film-star from 1948-51. Laughlin also illustrated filler features for various Fawcett comics and, after the demise of the line, had his own comic strip in Fawcett’s Mechanix Illustrated magazine for over two decades. He drew a short-lived syndicated strip (Cuffy, 1963-64), inked George Gately’s Heathcliff daily strip from 1978-88, created Kitz ’n’ Katz comic strips during the ’80s, and produced numerous sets of baseball cards during his career. William Harper originally interviewed Laughlin in a 1984 issue of FCA-SOB (later reprinted in the 2001 book Fawcett Companion). The following previously unpublished interview with Laughlin was conducted in 1991 via mail by my late friend—and frequent FCA contributing writer— John G. Pierce, who discovered it in his files and sent it to me shortly before he passed away in 2022. —PCH. JOHN G. PIERCE: Could you tell me a little bit about your family and how you first became interested in cartooning/comics art? BOB LAUGHLIN: When I was young, I would watch my dad draw cartoons, and ever since then, I wanted to be a cartoonist and draw comics. My dad, William Laughlin, didn’t draw professionally, but he was a good artist. He worked in advertising, writing copy for ads that were displayed on New York City subway trains. My mom’s name was Gwendolyn and she was a housewife. I had a sister named Virginia who was three years older than me. JGP: Where were you born? LAUGHLIN: I was born in Englewood, New Jersey, on September 18, 1925, but grew up in Leonia, New Jersey, and went to high school there as well. I was the art director on the school’s yearbook staff.
East Is East, And West Is West… (Left:) The previously published 1947 photo of Fawcett’s comics department in New York City, all wearing Captain Marvel sweatshirts. (Left to right:) Bob Laughlin, Roy Ald, Ginny Provisiero, Edna Hagen, Kay Woods, Len Leone, Wendell Crowley, Elinor Mendelsohn, Will Lieberson. (Above:) Laughlin’s splash page for “Monte Hale Battles the Great Hunger” from Western Hero #94 (Sept. 1950), written by William Woolfolk.[(TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
JGP: Where did you go after graduating high school? LAUGHLIN: I entered the U.S. Army in December of 1943 and was sent to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. I drew a strip called Spud Skinner for the Army newspaper, the Fort Jackson Journal. JGP: How long did you serve in the Army? LAUGHLIN: I was discharged in 1946, and I joined Fawcett Publications’ comics department that same year, in September.
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FCA [Fawcett Collectors Of America]
JGP: What were your main duties at Fawcett? LAUGHLIN: By the time I joined Fawcett, they were having all comic art pages done and delivered by freelance artists. Once we received them, I would do any minor “doctoring up” of the artwork that was needed, and did dialogue corrections inside the word balloons “We’ll Have These Moments To as directed by the Remember” editors. The comics Robert Laughlin’s Leonia (NJ) High School department was senior photo, 1943. Bob was art director set up in one big on the school yearbook staff, and a star room, except for pitcher for the school’s baseball team. editor-in-chief Will Lieberson’s office. Working alongside Len Leone, we also both handled the layouts of contents pages and advertisements—such as those for the Captain Marvel Club and ads promoting other Fawcett comic titles. JGP: Do you recall some of the artists who stopped by to drop off their work? LAUGHLIN: Some artists I got to know better than others. I became close friends with Carl Pfeufer—one of my heroes of the comics and a great artistic influence to me. The pages he penciled that were inked by his collaborator, John Jordan— such as Tom Mix Western—were some of my favorites. JGP: What about C.C. Beck? LAUGHLIN: Beck didn’t talk to us “menial” artists much! [laughs] I lived in Leonia, New Jersey, just minutes away from Beck, who lived in Englewood. I did go over to his house once or twice, but I never really got to know him very well.
A Tall Tale Bob Laughlin inked the majority of Carl Pfeufer’s pencils for scripter Leo Dorfman’s comicbook adaptation of the film Ten Tall Men starring Burt Lancaster. From Fawcett Movie Comic #16 (April 1952). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
JGP: How long did you continue in this position? LAUGHLIN: In 1948 I left to start freelancing for Fawcett. After [I drew] up a sample “Tom Mix” story (never published), Will Lieberson assigned me to Monte Hale Western. The Westerns were all the rage at the time, and Fawcett did a lot of them. My first assignment was a “Hale” story done for Western Hero, with Captain Marvel’s Wendell Crowley editing. I then went on doing two of the four stories in each issue of Monte Hale Western from 1948 to 1951. I’d get a script, lay it out in pencil for the editor—first Roy
Clubbed! This advertisement for the Captain Marvel Club from Whiz Comics #101 (Sept. 1948) was put together in Fawcett’s comics department either by Len Leone or Bob Laughlin… or both of them! [Shazam hero TM & © DC Comics.]
Hale & Hearty
Hale And Farewell! Three pages of “Monte Hale” drawn by Bob Laughlin. (Clockwise from top left:) “Prairie Plague,” from Monte Hale Western #38 (July 1949). Scripter unknown. Writer William Woolfolk refurbished an old Bulletman adversary for the Old West in “Monte Hale Meets The Weeper,” in Western Hero #79 (June 1949). A/E editor Roy Thomas recalled two “Monte Hale” stories he especially liked, which featured a sympathetic “Wolfman.” The first of these was drawn by another artist, but McLaughlin drew the second one for Monte Hale Western #40 (Sept. 1949). [TM & © the respective trademark & copyright holders.]
Ald, then Crowley, and later Barbara Heyman—then, after they okayed it, I did the final inking and often the lettering as well. JGP: Did you draw anything else for Fawcett? LAUGHLIN: I drew fillers for Jackie Robinson, Hot Rod Comics, Pinhead and Foodini, and I inked the 1952 Fawcett Movie Comic adaptation of Ten Tall Men, penciled by Carl Pfeufer. I also remember doing one Gabby Hayes Western story. During the ’50s I also inked Patsy Walker and Wendy Parker for Timely, and lettered various comics for Harvey. The lawsuit with DC was going on the whole time I was with Fawcett. After they dropped the comics, I drew a workshop strip
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